LOS ANGELES -- Four chances to win the WNBA championship. No rings. This is what the New York Liberty players have swimming shark-like around in their heads now.

But here's the thing: The Liberty, realistically, shouldn't have won a title any of the four times. It's not as if they let themselves or anyone else down.

Now, maybe that sounds like some nicey-nice, "everybody who tries is a winner" 25-pound bag of saccharine. It's not, though.

Look at the teams that New York has lost to in its title shots: Houston and L.A. The Liberty has been beaten by the likes of Cynthia Cooper, Tina Thompson, Sheryl Swoopes, Lisa Leslie and Mwadi Mabika. You could take those five as a team and probably bet they could beat any other combination of five women's players in history.

So let's be realistic: The Liberty's 69-66 loss to Los Angeles in Game 2 of the WNBA finals Saturday was a masterpiece of clinging by the fingernails even when they were getting stepped on.

New York refused many times to be pushed off the cliff. It was only the twin sledgehammers of Nikki Teasley's 3-pointer and the clock running out that finally mashed the Liberty players' battered hands into letting go.

They were like the Alien "mom" in "Aliens" fighting with Sigourney Weaver, grabbing onto her shoe, not giving up until finally being sucked out of the ship, screaming frustration into the oblivion of space.

The Liberty do not bleed acid instead of blood, though. Their blood's real, and so were the tears that flowed after this loss. The New York writers said they'd never seen the Liberty players so upset, which is saying something since they've had a lot of practice at feeling disappointed.

In the past, though, New York has seemed more ticked off than sad. Was it different this year because the players sense some things will change by next season? Saturday after the game, coach Richie Adubato indicated he doesn't think that will happen.

"I'll have to step back and look at the whole situation," he said, "but the way we played today, I don't know how many people are going to walk away without trying it again. And I think there's help coming."

Specifically, Adubato is hoping Camille Cooper and Linda Frohlich can contribute more next year. He also said, "We haven't given up, believe it or not, on Korie Hlede."

Adubato's known for a hideously complex playbook that takes most newcomers to his program awhile to learn. But if it's not going to work out for Hlede in New York, I hope she doesn't sit anchored to the bench for the Liberty another full season. Surely other teams can use her. She's too good of a scorer in a league that needs more players who can shoot.

Can the Liberty get any help in next year's draft? It really doesn't look like that impressive of a senior class, certainly nothing like either of the past two years.

So maybe we will see much the same cast of characters in Liberty uniforms. Vickie Johnson, Teresa Weatherspoon and Sue Wicks have been through all four finals losses, and perhaps it will be their turn in 2003 -- even though it will be even more difficult to win the Eastern Conference next year.

In the meantime, there should be some consolation for the Liberty players in knowing they fought as hard as they could have. Although Saturday, none of them seemed to think so.

"No," Wicks said. "Playing hard, that's who we are. We demand that out of each other. ... But we didn't win."

Mechelle Voepel of the Kansas City Star is a regular contributor to ESPN.com. She can be reached at mvoepel@kcstar.com.